Fuuka – 10

Fuuka still hasn’t written the lyrics. Everyone’s hounding her, but it isn’t until Yuu tries to offer some friendly help when she momentarily snaps. She’s sick of feeling the way she feels about Yuu, and seeing him flirt with Koyuki.

Of course, Koyuki isn’t satisfied either, because it’s not as if she and Yuu are really a couple. There something in between, something that just isn’t cutting it, and she can’t go on. So yeah, Yuu’s making precisely no one happy right now.

Fuuka eventually does finish the lyrics, and they’re apparently awesome. Yuu seems to think so. But whether Yuu’s calling her on the phone and being nice, smiling at her, or praising her awesome lyrics, Fuuka continues to feel like shit.

The night of their big gig we get a little slice of all the band members’ lives. Fuuka perches precariously from her roof, but we don’t see her family. Yuu’s sisters promise they’ll be there. Nachi’s grandma sparks some flint for good luck or something. And Makoto? Makoto’s getting disowned by his asshole father for daring to be in a useless band. I wish I cared…but I don’t!

Fuuka’s pink alpaca strap falls off right in the middle of the street, and everything seems to be pointing to Fuuka getting clobbered by the classic “anime truck doing 70 mph in the middle of downtown,” with Fuuka either buying it or ending up in the hospital, probably with a ruined voice on the eve of her big break.

Instead, she avoids the truck (she is pretty athletic), and leaves the alpaca strap behind, which is like a symbol for her attempting to be move beyond the torturous slog of pining for Yuu, something I’m still not quite sure why she’s doing in the first place.

So The Fallen Moon (uuuuuuggggghhhh) performs their Hedgehogs (I’m sick of capitalizing it) cover for the millionth time, followed by a slower number, and then Fuuka’s big number. Throughout the gig, there’s more than one person singing, even though Fuuka is the only one singing, which is weird.

Also, because apparently there wasn’t enough animated material in this episode, we cut to a slow pan of the classic “impossibly starry city sky” again and again. Honestly, the episode went to that sky almost as much as the band goes to Denny’s!

The gig complete (and a huge success), Fuuka finally decides she’ll do that solo contract after all. Mind you, this is the band’s second public performance, and she’s leaving the band. The band Mikasa got disowned to stay in. Nice.

Really though, Fuuka is making the right choice. Even though everyone in the band is pretty good, the offer with the cash wasn’t for the band, it was for her. And you gotta look out for number one. I’m not sure where this is going, but this is actually a mildly intriguing development.